Denise Eagan
Susan Macatee
Jennifer Ross
Nicole McCaffrey
Isabel Roman
Paisley Kirkpatrick
Mary Ann Webber
Caroline Clemmons
Jeanmarie Hamilton
K-Marie Wall
Mave Newall
Madam Pompadour, we all know her name, she’s the famous or infamous mistress of Louis XIV the Sun King. Royal mistresses were popular, nearly every monarch had one. They were installed in lavish apartments with every amenity of their time available. This phenomenon of mistresses treated as near queens was exclusive to the royals for a long time.
And then the Victorian Era came about.
By now, maintaining a mistress was no longer limited to royals or aristocrats. It’d trickled down to the middle class, becoming a more common occurrence for a gentleman to go home to his family in the afternoon and have an evening’s tryst with his mistress across town in a small, well maintained flat.
Many things once reserved for the upper class became commonplace to the middle class, and even to some extent, the lower classes. While brothels and street walkers were always around, to many, having one woman as a mistress became more civilized.
Whether they were mistresses of a gentleman with means, or lesser means, they did have their own household to maintain. Oftentimes, they had children to go with it. In many novels you hear of illegitimate children being sent to the country, it was also quite common for the mistresses to be kept in the country as well—sent to pasture so to speak, or keeping her away from the wife, or even so 
they could raise their children.
It was also common for them to be abandoned by the men in their lives, forcing them to seek out another protector. If they could not find another, they came to an awful end. However, less frequently, married their paramour if the wife passed—through real or induced means. 
It was very rare for a man to divorce his wife in favor of a mistress, but it did happen. And not just in romance novels! But the most common, long-term arrangements were where the man lived with his wife and maintained his mistress until he died.
We romance readers (and writers!) don’t want to read about the hero having an affair. Still, it was a sad fact of the time; then and now.
On an aside, tomorrow Thursday, June 25 the last in my Druids series, Temptations and Treachery will be released! Lady Isadore Harrington finally gets her own story. Check out my blog for an excerpt.
Filed under: Isabel Roman, Victorian era, Victorian novels, Victorian women at work, Victoriana, royalty | Tagged: mistresses, Victorian
Great post! Dare I say things really haven’t changed. Or did I study primatology too much? LOL Best of luck with that new release tomorrow. Since I write about Druids, I’m off to check it out.
~Skhye
Interesting post, Isabel! And of course you’re right, what romance reader wants to read about a hero who keeps another woman on the side?
Congratulations on your latest release!! I’ll be by to check out that excerpt.
Primatology? I love it, Skhye! You writer Druids, too? Must check out your stuff. I hope you enjoyed the excerpt.
Susan, I agree! No one wants to read about that.
Seems like mistresses are still getting men in trouble as we’ve seen with a lot of politicians lately. Maybe they should come up with a male form of chastity belt that is connected to their zipper. Look how many careers have been ruined because of the loose zipper. Always tragic when the innocent children are hurt as badly as they’ve been over the years. My great grandfather was the bastard child of a king….
So, were aristocratic women also allowed to keep, ah, manstresses? Male Mistresses? Misters?
I’d heard stories, but ya know, ya hear stories.
I always wondered what the male would be called, too. I couldn’t come up with anything that made sense, either. But I do object to the man allowed to have a woman with a specific name and the woman can’t! Double standards.